OMAHA — For the best swimmers in the United States, the road to Rio de Janeiro goes through CenturyLink Center. But where it goes from there is difficult to map. In 2012, Missy Franklin came to the Olympic trials and treated every final she made as a reason to dance, and she gamboled her way to berths in the London Games in four individual events and three relays.

Franklin, 21, is a self-described “people pleaser,” but in the aftermath of her five-Olympic-medal performance in London, she faced the impossible task of trying to satisfy the competing interests vying for her time and attention. She followed her heart, maintaining her amateur status long enough to finish high school and swim two years at the University of California. And last year she followed her head and turned pro to cash in on her high profile.

At these trials, Franklin is everywhere. Her likeness is plastered on the doors to the arena entrance. A promotional ad for Minute Maid, one of her sponsors, in which she tearfully thanks her parents for their support in a poignant letter she reads aloud, played on Tuesday before the start of the preliminaries on the giant video and timing board that hangs over the competition pool.

Franklin is everywhere but on the 2016 United States Olympic team, so far. In the final of the 100-meter backstroke — one of the two individual events in which she hoped to defend her 2012 title in the Rio Games — she finished seventh in the final, beating only Natalie Coughlin, 33, a 12-time Olympic medalist who is attempting to make her fourth Summer Games. Olivia Smoliga, 21, placed first with a time of 59.02 seconds. Kathleen Baker, 19, was second, with 59.29.

Franklin, who posted a 58.85 to win the event at the 2012 trials, swam the backstroke less than 25 minutes after she advanced to the final of the 200 freestyle with a time of 1 minute 0.24 of a second, the fourth-fastest time in the semifinals.

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Maya DiRado during the heats of the 200-meter individual medley. On Sunday, DiRado, 23, qualified for her first Olympics in the 400 I.M.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times

Ryan Lochte, 31, an 11-time Olympic medalist who on Sunday missed making the team in one of his gold-medal events, the 400-meter individual medley, finished fourth Tuesday in the 200 freestyle, won by Townley Haas, 19, to qualify for the team in a relay.

Franklin’s best event is the 200-meter backstroke, which will be contested Friday, with the finals taking place Saturday. She owns the two fastest times in history and is the top-ranked American in this year’s world rankings, at No. 6. Franklin is also entered in the 100 freestyle, which begins Thursday. She finished fifth in that event in London. But her competition, if she chooses to swim it, will be formidable.

“I think it’s just a matter of trying too hard, thinking a little too much,” Franklin said, referring to her disappointing swims in the backstroke. “Now it’s just about trusting myself and letting it happen.”

But how does she lock into the cruise control that was her natural state as a teenager? “From what I remember in 2012, I was kind of oblivious to everything that was going on,” Franklin said, “so I’m kind of trying to channel that a little bit.”

After the 2012 Olympics, Michael Phelps’s coach, Bob Bowman, gave Franklin a piece of advice that has stuck with her. He told her that she would face heightened expectations. She could view them one of two ways: as added pressure or additional support.

But for a people pleaser, that’s a double-edged sword. Support can be its own burden. “Having that practice of looking at those expectations as support, of people really believing that I can do what I did in 2012 again,” Franklin said, “that’s something that makes me feel so appreciated and so grateful and makes me want to go out there and make those people proud for believing in me.”

The eight-day competition is shaping up as a drawn-out retirement ceremony for the old guard: Eight of the first 10 finals produced winners that will be Olympic rookies. Aside from Lochte and Franklin, the veterans toppled included Matt Grevers, the reigning Olympic champion in the 100 backstroke, who finished third behind Ryan Murphy, 20, and David Plummer, 30; and Jessica Hardy, 29, who finished sixth in the 100 breaststroke, 2.53 seconds behind the winner, 19-year-old Lilly King.

Once upon a time, the new crop of stars included Kate Ziegler, who broke Janet Evans’s 19-year-old world record in the 1,500-meter free at age 17 and graced the 2008 and 2012 Olympic teams. Ziegler, 28, came out of retirement less than two years ago and finished 86th in the preliminaries of the 200-meter freestyle, nearly nine seconds behind Katie Ledecky’s pace-setting 1:55.60.

Ziegler said she is happier now than she was during her peak years, when she made herself miserable by “always looking for the next thing.”

Ziegler added: “Part of this journey is re-evaluating where swimming belongs in my life. It no longer defines me. I know who I am, and I don’t need to be validated through my swimming.”

Neither, it would appear, does Maya DiRado, 23, who qualified Sunday for her first Olympics in the 400 individual medley and placed first Tuesday night in the 200 I.M. semifinals in 2:10.09. DiRado, who graduated from Stanford in 2014, insists that her first Olympics will also be her last. She is scheduled to start a job with a management consulting firm in Atlanta in the fall.

“Some people see it as, ‘Oh, you’re swimming so well so why not keep going?’” DiRado said. “But I think part of the reason why I am swimming so well is knowing that I have a hard stop date.”

Dan Greaves, who coached DiRado when she was an age-grouper in Santa Rosa, in Northern California, said he would not be surprised if she returned to swimming at some point. Why? “It’s hard to leave this sport,” Greaves said. “It gets in your soul.”

Sometimes it takes a shove from a hungry youngster to break the spell.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: At U.S. Olympic Trials, So Far at Least, Franklin Is Everywhere but Rio-Bound. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe